1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a connector assembling fixture, and in particular to an assembling fixture for an FPC (Flexible Printed Circuit) connector that connects a flexible printed circuit board.
2. The Related Arts
Recently, with the progressive and continuous development of science and technology, living standards of human beings have been greatly improved and electronic products that play an important role in human society are getting diversified. Electronic products that are compact and miniaturized and of fashions are now prevailing and attract great attention of general consumers. This provides a guide for the development of electronic products toward compactness, functionality, and integration. To meet the needs for “better compactness” and “less weight”, electronic products must be configured in such a way that a great number of components are arranged in an extremely dense manner. One of the feasible measures for realizing such an extremely dense arrangement of electronic components is the use of flexible printed circuits (FPCs), which are of excellent flexibility for easy arrangement to thereby facilitate realization of electronic products being light-weighted, compact, and miniaturized and also allow for integration of components and wiring in electronic products. An FPC connector functions to connect a flexible printed circuit to wiring or circuit boards of component assemblies.
Referring to FIGS. 11 and 12, an FPC (flexible printed circuit) connector 20 comprises an insulation housing 21, a cover 23, and a plurality of conductive terminals 22. The insulation housing 21 has a front side forming an insertion opening 24 that receives a flexible circuit board to insert therein. The insulation housing 21 forms terminal slots 25, and the conductive terminals 22 are respectively received and retained in the terminal slots 25. The cover 23 forms pivots 26 for rotatably coupling with the insulation housing 21. The insulation housing 21 forms pivot recesses 27 corresponding to the pivots 26 of the cover 23. The pivots 26 of the cover 23 are rotatably received and retained in the pivot recess 27. The conductive terminals 22 that are received and retained in the insulation housing 21 have front ends holding the pivots 26 in position thereby retaining the cover 23 on the insulation housing 21. Rotation of the pivots 26 allows the cover 23 to move relative to the insulation housing 21 to an open condition (as shown in FIG. 11) or a closed condition (as shown in FIG. 12). With the cover 23 in the open condition, a flexible substrate (not shown) is allowed to insert into the connector and then the cover 23 can be rotate to close. The rotation of the cover 23 to the closed condition drives the flexible substrate on which circuit patterns are printed to form an FPC to tightly engage the conductive terminals 22, thereby realizing electrical engagement between the conductive terminals 22 and the FPC.
Assembling the FPC connector 20 is carried out by first assembling the cover 23 to the insulation housing 21, and then, with the cover 23 opened, sequentially inserting the terminals 22 and forcibly depressing the terminals 22 so that front ends of the terminals extending into the insulation housing 21 engages and holds the pivots 26 of the cover 23 to retain the cover 23 on the insulation housing 21. As such, the assembling of the FPC connector 20 is completed.
However, the key issue of the assembling operation of the FPC connector is to assemble the cover and to maintain the cover in the open condition for assembling the terminals and this is the tough part of the assembling operation. Currently, such operations are performed manually. Manual assembling of FPC connectors suffers poor precision, intense human labor required, poor assembling efficiency, and poor consistency of quality of the FPC connectors so manually assembled, which leads to poor product passing rate. Apparently, the conventional way of assembling does not meet the needs of compactness, high functionality, and intense integration of modern electronic products.